


Crying for the Moon

by ant5b



Series: Crying for the Moon [1]
Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: I'm dead folks, Last Crash of the Sun Chaser, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-25 22:19:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15650049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ant5b/pseuds/ant5b
Summary: Della has started haunting him.





	Crying for the Moon

**Author's Note:**

> So...that new episode, huh?

 

He doesn’t mean for it to happen.

How could he? How could anyone think he meant to make orphans of her children? To take Donald’s best friend? To strand his little sister’s only daughter to the vacuum of space? 

His nephew looks him in the eye and says, “You’ve killed her.”

The radio is still spitting static, the signal’s been lost, and Della Duck’s been dead for eight minutes. 

(it takes 2 years, four months, and five days until Scrooge finally believes that)

(until he accepts that he doomed her from the start)

In the pram Della chose, that Scrooge happily paid for, and Donald inspected for safety, are the three most important things in the universe. Great-nieces or nephews he’s to meet any day now, whose movements inside their eggs he’s listened to with joy and anticipation. The only hatching he’s ever witnessed was Hortense’s, and it’s fitting that his second will be her grandchildren’s. 

Donald takes the pram carrying the Three Most Important Things in the Universe and swears Scrooge will never seem them again. And some sick part of him is glad for it. He’d just hurt them too. 

 

Scrooge is alone, but he doesn’t stop. 

He hears Della’s voice in his ear, clear as a bell. 

_ You can’t give up now! I’m counting on you, Uncle Scrooge! Don’t forget about me, okay? _

In six months he has two dozen ships. A trained crew of four dozen. They know what they’re risking. 

A month later, only fifteen ships return. Della is not on any of them. 

He sends more ships. 

 

Della has begun to haunt him. 

(he doesn’t believe she’s dead)

(not yet)

From the moment he wakes to whatever Godfrey-forsaken hour he falls asleep, she stands at his right shoulder the same way she always does (did). 

She talks to him like she did as a child, filling the silence with absent minded prattle. She comments on blueprints, star charts and spending reports. 

_ Are you using the most efficient fuel? You’ll want to move these boosters at least a meter down, Uncle Scrooge, otherwise you’ll risk damage to the anterior plating. But you already knew that, huh? _

_ My ship might’ve drifted into the andromeda quadrant! It couldn’t hurt to look.  _

_ Are you sure you aren’t spending too much money? Don’t empty your Money Bin for me, Uncle Scrooge. _

She’s only ever kind, only ever positive, and he hates himself all the more for it. Even in death she only ever makes excuses for him. 

Her children’s hatch day comes and goes, and because of him she’s not there to see it. 

Scrooge won’t know if he has grandnieces or nephews for another six months. 

He learns their names three months after that,. 

_ Hubert, Dewford, Llewellyn. I sure can pick ‘em, huh, Uncle Scrooge?  _

Della continues to haunt him, he continues to send ships, and he doesn’t stop feeling like a murderer. 

 

A year after he loses the Spear of Selene’s signal, Scrooge realizes he can’t remember what his niece sounds like. 

Even her ghost has gone mute, her form blurry to his eyes. 

He tears the mansion apart and he’s alone but he doesn’t stop. 

He finds a tape, a recording of Donald and Della’s eighteenth birthday. By the shaky camera work, he knows he was the one recording. 

His niece and nephew are out on the mansion lawn, at a table laden with cake and gifts, surrounded by friends and family Scrooge hasn’t seen since Before. There’s terrible, off-key singing and then they try to shove each other’s face in the cake, as per tradition. Donald’s ready for it this time, and Della has frosting up to her eyebrows but she’s laughing and promising she’ll get Donald next year. 

If memory serves, she does. 

 

When he’s not in the shuttle command center or paying contractors or in meetings with his board, he’s in the radio room. 

He hails Della for hours at a time, every spare moment he has. With twisted dread and hope in his hollow heart, he imagines hearing her voice. He would give  _ anything  _ for the radio to crackle and his niece to answer, shaken but alive, apologizing for the scare like when she took his limo for a joyrun at fifteen.

(and he has given anything,  _ everything  _ to make this reality)

(his board won’t allow this for much longer but he c a n ‘t  s t o p )

In these delusions he can ignore that it’s been two years, that the one who’d been his daughter in all but name is long dead and frozen and gone in the far wastes of space. 

On the worst days, when it’s too late to be night and too early to be morning, he clutches the radio in both hands and  _ begs.  _

Della’s ghost stands at his side, a hand on his shoulder, and she forgives him over and over again, every night. 

It makes the dead black thing in his chest  _ scream  _ because Scrooge is not a good man and has never been a good man and he killed his niece because adventure has always mattered more than family. 

He hates that her ghost never blames him, never rails against the decisions he’s made. But that’s just Della, never one to foist blame on others when she could take it on herself. Just another thing they have in common. 

(but Della isn’t him and he forgets that and he let it blind him)

_ You wanted to do something good.  _

_ It was for the family.  _

_ You never meant to hurt me.  _

_ You’re doing enough, Uncle Scrooge.  _

It would hurt less if she condemned him. Her excuses are just that. They remind him that when he tries to do good, people get hurt. That he’s a danger to his family. That no matter what he does, it will never be enough. He will never be enough. 

His mistakes get people killed. 

 

His board shuts down the space program. They drag him out of the radio room and tell him in no uncertain terms that Della Duck is dead and his company isn’t long to follow. 

He wishes he could care about the latter. 

But Scrooge is alone. Even Della’s ghost is gone. 

He’s alone and he finally stops. 

 

He won’t know what his great-nephews look like until they show up on his doorstep ten years later. 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> This fic has fanart now! Check it out! [here](http://toonlemon.tumblr.com/post/177039626325/it-would-hurt-less-if-she-condemned-him-her/)


End file.
